


The Married Affair

by bocje_ce_ustu



Series: Spizzichi e Bocconi (Tumblr Writing, Fills and Flashfics) [4]
Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Alternate Universe - Office, Charles and Raven Are Not Related, M/M, Mentions Of Infidelity, Roleplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-09-22
Packaged: 2019-01-04 01:07:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12158478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bocje_ce_ustu/pseuds/bocje_ce_ustu
Summary: Office AU. Everyone at work is very concerned about Charles and Erik cheating on their spouses.





	The Married Affair

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this](http://havleyatwell.tumblr.com/post/154137625339) awesome post on Tumblr. You can find the fic also [here](http://bocje-ce-ustu.tumblr.com/post/165596326272/lawlu-minssery-ask-bot-whats-the-most).

“Lehnsherr dropped him off at work the other day, I’m telling you,” Angel insisted, adding fuel to the hushed conversation already kindling on this side of the glass pane. She had managed to gather all of them in the corner of the room that gave the best view of the coffee and snack machines, and now they were all waiting for the subject of their conversation to appear.

At 10:30 sharp, Lehnsherr rounded the corner to the rest area and made a beeline to the vending machine for his customary double ristretto.

“Maybe they just live in the same neighborhood,” Sean ventured.

Angel kept her eyes trained beyond the glass, an eyebrow arched skeptically. “That doesn’t explain the thorough exchange of body fluids in public.”

“Ew.”

“She meant saliva, Alex,” Hank said. “Wait, you meant saliva, right?”

“Look! There they are.” Raven called their attention back to the other side of the glass where, as if on cue, Charles had just joined Lehnsherr by the vending machine, propping himself up against it so he was facing Lehnsherr as he tapped out his order.

Under their wide-eyed gaze, Lehnsherr handed a plastic cup to Charles, who accepted it with a smile.

Lehnsherr never offered to pay for someone else’s coffee, and surely his fingers never lingered onto the cup more than strictly necessary for a deliberate brush of skin on skin. It was all beyond appalling.

“What did I tell you?” Angel whispered triumphantly.

“Gross.” Raven shook her head in disbelief. “And to think just the other day Charles said he was so excited about his wedding anniversary.”

“Oh, no,” Armando sounded genuinely defeated. “Never took him for the cheating kind.”

“Who, Charles?” Raven scoffed. “He could flirt with the shredder and bed the printer.”

“Who’s Charles flirting with now?” Janos from Accounting dropped off a stack of paperwork and joined the small crowd gathered at the corner.

Raven raised her eyebrows significantly, as if that proved her point.

“Lehnsherr,” Hank offered drily.

“The Lehnsherr that’s been married for over ten years?”

Sean’s head snapped so fast in his direction that Hank nearly winced in sympathy just by looking at him. “Did _he_ tell you that?”

“No, it was Frost from HR. She knows everything about everyone.”

“Poor wife,” Raven sighed.

“Or husband,” Alex added, meeting Armando’s eye over her head.

No one had yet figured out which.

“Charles did mention it was a steel anniversary, now that I think about it.”

“Must be a critical stage in a marriage,” Sean mused.

“Don’t you think we should do something about it?” Raven’s lips had that rebellious curl that usually meant someone was about to be severely injured.

“Like talking them out of it?”

Four heads turned to Armando, making him instantly regret his ownership of vocal chords.

“Alright, I get it,” he sighed. “But find someone else to talk to Lehnsherr. I’m quite fond of my head as it is, still attached to my neck.”

 

***

 

16:45 summons were unusual. Unusual usually meant trouble. Confident of the quality of his work, Erik resolved to approach it the way he would any report.

“If it’s about the data for the BSC, I’m waiting for—”

McTaggert cut him short with a wave of her hand. “Oh, Erik. Good. Come take a seat.”

He complied, settling into the chair in front of her desk. From the tense set of McTaggert’s jaw and shoulders it was clear this was no talk of KPIs. Erik mentally went through all of his recent activities seeking a reasonable cause for dismissal or downgrading but, as expected, there was none. It was quite disconcerting he hadn’t been offered a promotion yet, actually. Not that he’d take it right now – he was happy to have Charles around, after so much time spent commuting from one side of the city to the other.

“Now, I don’t normally meddle in the private lives of my team, and...”

“Then why does it sound like that kind of meddling?”

McTaggert ignored his sharp interruption and plowed on. “… and you know I don’t really care about who you do as long as you both… or more,” she added after a thought “get the job done. But,” she went on with a sigh “the boys and girls on the ops team won’t stop pestering me, so…”

“Is this about me and Charles?”

McTaggert looked him straight in the eye and opened her mouth to say something, then apparently thought better of it and closed it. Her gaze lowered to the files in front of her on the desk, and she began again, in a studiously neutral tone. “From your files I read you’re married.”

“Yes.”

“Charles is married too.”

“Isn’t that the whole point?” It was tautological.

A dark scowl descended onto McTaggert’s face as she clearly fought against an outburst of outrage. “The whole point? So you’re doing this _specifically_ _because_ you’re both married?”

“Yes?” Well, actually it wasn’t as if their public displays of affection were due to their marital status – it was the other way around, but still Erik failed to see the problem with that. And what did that _both_ mean, anyway?

“So is it like a kink?”

“Kink? Is working together a kink?” Erik asked, baffled.

“No, I just meant that maybe… maybe you like the thrill of illici… ok, no, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.” She rubbed her hands on her face and gave a long, helpless sigh. “Do your partners know?”

“What do Raven and Hank have to do with this?”

“I didn’t mean your work partners, I meant… your spouses.”

“Charles is my spouse.” As he was saying that, something clicked. “You thought he wasn’t,” he spat out in disbelief, and found the confirmation of his words on McTaggert’s face. “You thought we were having an affair.”

“I didn’t—” Her need of an answer was waived by the door opening on a familiar face.

“May I?” Charles asked even as he let himself in. His gaze took in McTaggert, stiff and red-faced, and then focused on him. “Oh, Erik!” He looked positively flushed with elation. “Did you know? Apparently we’re cheating on each other with each other.”

 

***

 

“We’re not doing the ‘ships in the night’ thing again.” Erik knew it was only a matter of time before Charles suggested it, so he thought it better to beat him to it. “It feels like we’re cheating on each other.”

The incident at work had made him all the more sensitive to the matter. It was simply impossible for him to see himself with someone that wasn’t Charles, and the thought that the whole office had unwittingly degraded their relationship to a simple tryst still gnawed at him.

The whole thing seemed to have the opposite effect on Charles, who had spent the whole day in fits of giggles and, come evening, had been all too eager to get into bedroom role play.

“But we’re not. Look, we’re just... harmlessly pretending we haven’t met yet. We could be literally anyone. And I, for one, am looking forward to meet with a…” Charles’ hand leisurely trailed down his hip and thigh “… Magnus… Eisenhardt.”

Erik set his hands on Charles’ hips, drawing him close. “I don’t like this Eisenhardt guy.”

“Neither do I,” Charles grinned wickedly. “On the other hand, my twin brother Francis thinks he’s quite hot.”

The prospect might be tantalizing for Charles, but Erik wasn’t half convinced. “On and off secret liaison with the office boss. What do you say?”

Charles swatted his thigh with a chuckle. “You power play junkie! You only like that when _you_ ’re the boss.”

“Try me.”

It took exactly 0.3 seconds for Charles to slip into his new persona, nice and snug like a well-fitting glove.

“Lehnsherr! I want that report on my desk by tomorrow morning.”

Charles’s dark eyes and low voice sent a thrill down Erik’s spine. His hands travelled lower and gripped, earning him a satisfied hum from Charles.

“Do you want anything else on your desk?”

The quality of Charles’s gaze suddenly changed. Erik knew that glint when he saw it.

“We are so doing it on Moira’s desk in the afterhours,” Charles said.

Erik repressed a sigh. “Tell me again why I play along?”

“We are. You’re gonna pick the lock, darling.”  
  
  
  



End file.
